


The Luckiest

by shingekinoboyfriends



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-22 00:40:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1569632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shingekinoboyfriends/pseuds/shingekinoboyfriends
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was supposed to be just another happy roadtrip!au... But it turned into something else entirely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Luckiest

**Author's Note:**

> _warnings - slurs, angst, and a little nsfw_
> 
> I [posted this on Tumblr](http://shingekinoboyfriends.tumblr.com/post/71313633649/the-luckiest-a-jeanmarco-oneshot) back in December but was asked to post on AO3 so, here it is! The angsty roadtrip!AU nobody asked for.  
> -Annie

I don’t realize how much I need to feel this summer in my bones until he shows up at my house at two in the morning, cheeks red and eyes puffy, hands covered in salt from wiping away the pain and mouth a rigid line that is trying so hard to be tough and failing so miserably.

He uses the back door and sneaks up to my room, the way he often does when my parents are asleep and the night sky shines pinhole light through my bedroom window. I’m lying awake in bed, counting the ways I want him on my fingers before bringing them to my lips and remembering his laced through mine.

There’s a soft rapping on my door. It startles me and I jerk upward in bed. The door creaks open and I see the figure standing there with fallen shoulders and a surrounding darkness that I can’t quite place.

“Marco,” I hear him whisper, his voice giving him away – but I already know who it is before Jean even says a word.

I pull back the covers and start to get out of bed when I see his hand push forward, stalling me. “Wait,” he says, “don’t move.” I obey. I wait for him to close the door, crawl across the floor to the foot of my bed and lean upward, eyes meeting mine. They’re glistening something raw and burning, and without thinking, my hand moves to his cheek.

“What happened,” I whisper, not a question but a statement, because I can tell something isn’t right.

It’s so long before he says anything, but he leans into my hand as his eyelids fall shut. A shaky breath leaves his lips, and when he reopens his eyes, something else is there.

“It’s my dad,” he says, and his voice cracks.

I don’t say a word, and instead scoot on the mattress, its coils squeaking loudly through the near-silence hanging between us, and I don’t have to ask him to close the gap. He just does. We’re side-by-side now, my arms wrapping around his shoulders, my hands cupping his neck.

“You don’t have to explain any more,” I tell him quietly, my chin resting on top of his head, and I feel his shoulders tremble. I tell him this because I already know what happened – another fight about his sexuality, probably bad. Real bad. And I don’t want to hear him tell me the details because I can’t bear to hear them; my chest already aches with the sensation of a hundred pins rushing in at once.

“What am I gonna do?” he asks, but he isn’t really asking  _me_. He’s searching for the answer in himself. “I can’t keep fighting him. I can’t keep living in that house with parents who refuse to-“ This time his voice breaks so bad he can’t even finish. But I can guess.  _Parent’s who refuse to love the real me._

“I love you,” I murmur. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”  _Even if I’m not the one you wish were saying it. Even though the fact that I’m not a girl is ruining everything. Even if it isn’t enough._

“It’s enough,” he says, as though reading my thoughts.

Jean pulls back and our eyes lock again. He lifts his head ever-so slightly and I bridge the gap to connect my lips and his. I’m met with a fervor, which seems desperate and pleading and pained.

“Marco,” his mouth moves against mine, “let’s leave.” His breath is hot. 

I kiss him again. “Where would we go?” 

“Doesn’t matter,” he says, kissing deeper, hungrier, tongue darting in and out. We kiss for a while and I feel him getting hard under the covers, and as much as I try to ignore it, I find that I can’t.

He falters just as I reach down to grab him, his hands moving from my chest to my shoulders, then one reaches to cup the back of my neck. His thumb rests firmly on my jawline.

“You would come with me, wouldn’t you?”

Just as the feeling of hopefulness begins to pass through me, so does the feeling that fantasies like these always bring. It’s a feeling that’s like nostalgia, in the way that you remember something good and it makes you sad because it won’t be good that way ever again. Except this isn’t a memory, it’s a wish, and as much as I wish things could be carefree and adventurous, I know they can’t be. And it makes that dull ache return in my chest.

But I say the words I know he needs to hear anyway.

“I would follow you anywhere.”

And through his weepy eyes, so full of tears he’s fighting to hold back, he smiles. It’s a tight smile, and his lips look like they’re sewn shut from how taut they’re pressed together, but I can tell it made him happy.

When he speaks, something in his voice sounds different.

“Then let’s go.”

* * *

The air is warm but there’s a chill running down my spine. I’m terrified, but Jean is leading me out the back door, my suitcase in his hand that’s packed with double clothes for both of us and other necessities we’ll have to share. I keep looking around as we walk to his rusty pickup truck sitting parked at the road, like there’s going to be someone out there waiting, ready to stop us and force our hands apart.

My mother will worry. I try not to think about the hundreds of worries swarming in my own head and instead imagine life the way Jean does – in the moment, despite any and all repercussions that we’ll eventually face. My cheeks are stained pink and he tosses the bag in the trunk, then leans me up against the side of the car with his hands flush against the worn finish of the car. He kisses me hard like we’re about to sail head-first out of the eye of the storm and into the waves crashing in the distance.

This solution is only temporary, but the way he begged was irresistible and in the end, I couldn’t tell him no. My head screams, “Marco, you’re a fool,” but my heart lulls back, “It’s love.” And I can’t fight the butterflies that swarm in the pit of my stomach whenever I’m near him. It’s worse when he does things like this – things like moving his mouth on mine, our lips connected as a physical way of validating what’s happening inside us.

He breathes in sharply and rests his forehead against mine for a moment, eyelashes lacing themselves shut.

“We won’t be gone for long,” he says, “but I can’t stay here another minute.”

I nod. “Okay.”

The note I left my mother is sitting on the kitchen counter. It’s folded once and in tired handwriting, her name is scrawled across the front. She’ll find it in the morning and call me, probably a little angry but mostly worried that we’ll get into trouble. We probably will. She’s going to be anxious for all the right reasons because there isn’t a doubt in my mind that Jean’s parents will show up on her doorstep in regards to the location of their son.

I slide into the passenger’s seat with regret filling me, knowing she won’t deserve the lashing fury they’ll release on her when daylight breaks… but I don’t know what to do.

Jean turns the car on and reaches for my hand. I take his hand in mine and bring it up to my lips, pressing them against his knuckles as if to silently say,  _You are precious to me, and you are worth it._

The car rolls off down the street and we make our way into the night.

* * *

“You have the map, right?” he asks. Dawn’s light begins to streak the clouds overhead as I reach into my pocket, pulling out the torn atlas page. I hold it up so he can see it and he nods once.

“Are you getting tired?”

“Nope,” he says a little too quickly, but the lie is evident both in his voice and the way he tries to will his eyes open wider. Jean has been squinting at the road for miles, and he’s starting to swerve a little as we get passed on the highway again. He’s not looking at his speed, but I am, and he’s driving too slow, especially by Jean’s standards. He usually has a lead foot and passes cars going 80 mph. Today, he’s driving a bleak 65. 

“You need to sleep. I can drive for a while.”

At first he looks offended, but I can tell how tempting my offer is becoming in the way his shoulders seem to lose tension.

“You’re tired, too,” he says at the truck stop we’ve pulled off to. It’s just us there, and a Coca Cola semi that looks abandoned.

“Jean,” I repeat – even though I know he’s right, “hand me the keys.”

“No way,” he says. “I can keep driving. You need to sleep.”

I shake my head because I can’t believe the gall of this guy and I lean across the center console to rest my head on his shoulder. We are both exhausted, and I know that if I would have gotten a few hours of shut eye while he drove, we wouldn’t be in this situation. However, I also know that Jean needed me to stay awake with him because he was nervous, and I could sense it radiating off him in waves as his knuckles went white gripping the steering wheel. I knew this, even if he would never admit it. 

“It’s almost six o’clock,” I muse, sighing a little. “Maybe we should both rest for a few hours.”

“Maybe,” he echoes. We sit there another minute, my head still pressed against his neck, but he soon moves to turn off the engine and grab the afghan he had tossed in the truck’s meager backseat. My eyes flash to watch him out the back window, despite it being stained with a thin layer of muddy rainwater. He gets into the truck bed and lays the blanket flat, careful with the sides to make it straight, tests it a moment, then hops out and comes to my side.

He opens the door for me, which makes me smile a little, but as he reaches again into the backseat, I curiously look over my shoulder to see what he’s searching for this time. He finds it quickly, proceeding to pull out an oversized blue hoodie missing its synching cord. Then he closes the door and leads the way into the truck bed.

I follow him on hands and knees, pulling the back latch up behind me and move toward him. The air is filled with the sound of cars flying down the highway.

The tight feeling in my chest is given slight relief; it’s probably the way he’s looking at me, and the way he folds the hoodie into a pillow beside him – meant for me. 

“Share,” I say. His cheeks look a little flushed, which I can now more easily tell through the dim light of morning. Jean lifts his head and unfolds the makeshift pillow a little more to give it some length, so as to fit both him and me.

My body plops down next to him and my nose is inches away from his. He smells nice.

Jean starts to hum a little, like he sometimes does when he’s nervous or anxious. It starts out quiet but once he hits the chorus, his hums gain a little momentum.

“Quit humming Hall and Oates,” I joke, eyes shutting lightly.

“But they’re your favorite.”

“Not when I’m trying to sleep.” 

He laughs lightly, pecking me on the forehead, and wraps me in his arms. Our legs get tangled and I worry a little what people will think if they see two guys lying together like this. I wonder if it’s even legal to sleep someplace like this. I’m sure it isn’t safe, anyway, but Jean is so good at convincing me otherwise when he holds me in such a way. I like the feeling of his chest rising and falling, and I like how our breathing naturally falls in sync with one another.

We fall asleep quickly, and awake hours later to sunshine blinding our eyes. I’m the first one to stir, and as I sit upright, my eyes begin to focus. There’s a man standing toward the entrance of the small rest stop building, his arms folded across his chest with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. As reality starts to sink in, I can see he’s glaring at me. At  _us._

I sigh, shaking Jean’s shoulder a little and watch the look on his face as he begins to regain consciousness. There’s even a little drool hanging out of his mouth. It seems like he had been out cold, and I wonder if I would have let him continue on sleeping if he would have slept past noon.

“We need to leave,” I say lightly, knowing he can hear me as one of his eyes peeks open. My eyes land on that guy again and he appears to be heading in our direction. “Now.” The word sounds more urgent this time, and Jean sits up with his hand in his hair, scratching his scalp and trying to turn his body back on.

I move to get out of the truck bed and he climbs out soon after, his movements a little sloppier than mine, and I wrap the afghan up into a big ball before tucking it in the backseat. Jean’s got the hoodie, and he tosses that in, too.

The man with the cigarette flicks his butt at our front tires as he passes us, and I hear a word leave his mouth that makes my stomach drop.

“Fuckin’  _queers._ ”

“Fuckin’  _ignorant assholes_!” Jean shouts back without missing a beat. He tries to brush it off but I can tell the word leaves its mark. It’s hard not to care, especially for Jean who is victim to the insults and the shaming on a daily basis at home.

And it’s sad because he doesn’t deserve it – which makes me feel like it’s my fault. It’s because he’s with me that he subjects himself to this.

I remember the time I tried to break it off with him, when I took every single emotion I had for him and shoved them to the back of my mind where they wouldn’t get in the way. It was in January and his mom had heard us messing around in Jean’s room while we thought she was at work. That was when things started to get bad for him.

But even then, even when I tried my absolute hardest to do what I thought was best for him, Jean wouldn’t leave me. I remember the tears that trailed down his cheeks, the way his shoulders shook violently as he choked on sobs, and the way he kissed me then and told me I didn’t know what the fuck I was talking about. That he loved me. That no matter how bad things got, he couldn’t let me go.

I remember these things with a heavy heart, albeit a heart full of him. I’m consumed and I know it can’t be healthy, but I can’t help it.

We get in the car and he sighs angrily, powering the ignition and throwing his hands on the wheel. “I fucking hate people,” he says finally, his voice indignant. But he doesn’t say anything more and neither do I, so as we get back on the highway, I turn on the radio and try to distract us.

It takes a few minutes, but it helps. Jean starts messing with the stations, hitting buttons which appear haphazard in gesture but are methodical in his radio’s everyday function. Turning a dial here, twisting one there, punching four, five, six, and letting out a groan when nothing desirable is playing.

Suddenly, as though by sheer luck, Jean manages to catch a station playing The Mamas and the Papas.

“Weird travel music,” I say aloud, despite having meant to only think it.

“Oh yeah?” Jean counters.

I cough a little nervously. “I mean, this song just kind of creeps me out.”

“ _California Dreamin’_  creeps you out,” he deadpans, a little slack-jawed like he can’t believe this song ever creeped another person out before.

“I think it’s the melody,” I say decidedly. “And yes, it creeps me out.”

Jean smirks and starts to sing along. He doesn’t get the words right every time but he doesn’t even bat an eyelash at his lyrical mistakes. I roll my eyes at him, because  _of course_  if I don’t like something, he has to  _love_  it. Just to tease me. Most of the time I don’t mind, but the song starts to bug me so I change stations again, trying to figure out his radio controls as I do so.

“WAIT!” Jean’s voice fills the car and my hands freeze on he knobs. Jean just looks over at me, switching into the fast lane, and grins widely. “This song is my  _jam._ ”

I can’t even tell what the song is before Jean starts singing along obnoxiously. It’s “Wasn’t Me” by Shaggy.  _God, your music taste is the worst,_  I think, but can’t help smiling a little so I hide my mouth in my palm. He starts trying to sing the verse that sounds mostly like a lot of hollow sounds and vague consonants, but I don’t stop him because it’s funny. By the time it gets back to the chorus, he’s belting it out like it’s his favorite song in the entire world and I’m doubled over in laughter. My sides start hurting and it takes our minds off the fact that his parents are probably waking up right now – and he won’t be home.

* * *

“It’s fifteen miles to the Kearsley Street exit,” I say, my finger following the map up the road we’re driving on, “and then it’s going to be up on the left.”

We stay quiet for a little while, but the windows are rolled down so the void is filled with wind rushing in. The atlas page ruffles in my hands, crinkling around the edges and the places where my thumbs grip it tightly.

Jean’s brow is creased and his eyes stare out at the road, but I can tell he’s thinking about something else, something much different than driving. I want to lean over and kiss him on the cheek or reach out and hold his hand but we’re so close to our destination that I don’t want to distract him, or pull him away from his thoughts, no matter how painful they are.

Some things are so heavy you just have to sort them out in your own head.

It’s seven o’clock and we’ve been driving for what feels like forever, but I tell myself it’s going to be worth this awful feeling of carsickness spreading from my stomach up to my throat. At least I think it’s carsickness. I don’t feel well, my head is throbbing, and my lungs feel like I’m breathing smoke. Everything aches.

“Just up there,” I say finally, heaving a sigh of relief. Jean looks at me, coming back to reality, turning off the highway and making a sharp left.

We can see the beach from here. There’s a big, grassy hill dotted with little dandelions and the leaves of a dozen trees ruffle in the breeze. A smile spreads across his lips as we pull over and park in the small designated lot full of cars. A family appears to be leaving as they crest the hill, a pair of young parents chasing after their little girl who holds a pinwheel in one hand and grips her towel around her shoulders with the other.

Jean and I get out of the car and start to walk along the path. Without thinking, I take him by the hand and we walk like that, my other hand trailing along the railing to steady us. The hill is steep, but the shimmer of the water reflects off our eyes and we can’t stop staring.

He leans his shoulder into mine when we reach the sand. Toes scrunching through the debris and tiny flecks of rocks scattering the place where trail meets beach.

“Where do you want to sit?” I ask, scanning the shore and all of the people scattered along it, trying to find a place a bit less-populated where we can admire the water but won’t be bothered by prying eyes.

He nods toward the direction of a bluff and I follow his lead. There’s a little area somewhat separated from the rest of the beach and I’m relieved to find that no one else has migrated over here. Jean pulls me down with him and we turn our bodies to face the shoreline. The air smells like salt and barbeque and the piercing shrieks of happy children swimming meet our ears.

Jean waits until we’re sure no one is watching before he steals a kiss. This whole scene feels like a dream and I don’t want to wake up. My heart surges with a sudden rush of emotion and my eyes start to prickle because  _we actually left,_  and for once, there’s no one around to silence our happiness.

“Thanks for coming with me,” he says quietly, finally speaking after what feels like such a long time spent in silence. “You make me feel so lucky.”

“I’m the lucky one,” I say, turning my face from his line of vision and wipe at the corners of my eyes. It’s stupid, and  _I’m_ stupid, but sometimes my heart feels so full that I can’t sort out my emotions fast enough and they turn into tears. I sniffle but he doesn’t ask why, he just rests his head on my shoulder and wraps his arms around my waist.

“You know,” he starts, changing the subject to try and lighten the mood, “I’ve never gone skinny dipping.”

I look down at him and can’t help but laugh. “And you aren’t going to start now. There are children present.”

“I meant,” he says, warm breath rising up my neck as he rests his lips on my jawline, “ _later._ ”

That sends another rush through me and I wonder if he really has the guts to skinny dip in such a public place. I certainly wouldn’t. But then again, I wouldn’t have the guts to do much of anything if he weren’t there, leading me along, taking the initiative and guiding our way. We wouldn’t be here if Jean wasn’t as determined as was, of that I am sure.

“Later,” I repeat quietly, smiling a little. My cheeks turn rosy and it isn’t from the heat, and I can feel his grin spreading against my skin. “Maybe.”

“You’re so cute,” he mumbles.

Now I’m blushing furiously and I can’t help or hide it. But we’re in our own little corner of paradise and I’m grateful for the privacy; the thought of someone rounding the corner and spotting us here like this makes me nervous, but I forget all about it when he lets one of his arms fall and tightens his grip around my waist with the other.

Things might not be amazing, and they sure won’t stay this way for long, but right now we’re here. We’re in the middle July and school doesn’t start back up for another month, and the air is warm with summer and sunlight.

And even though the sun is just starting to set, from where we’re sitting, it sure is an amazing view.


End file.
